Kit Holder to create new work for Company

This is Holder's second commission for Birmingham Royal Ballet, following his 2007 Kandinsky-inspired piece, Small Worlds.

The new work will expand upon his own hugely popular four-minute ballet, Printer Jam, to music by drum'n'bass producer Mistabishi. Created as part of a 2010 Company Choreographics project, in which dancers are invited to present pieces of their own devising, Printer Jam was subsequently included in the
Company's 20th Anniversary Royal Gala, and at the launch of the 2010 Drum'n'Bass awards in Birmingham.

You can watch a short video about Printer Jam here:

Speaking of the new commission, Kit said:

'The initial success of Printer Jam was down to the
unusual combination of Drum'n'Bass and classical ballet. The problem with extending that concept from that four-minute duet into a much longer piece is that modern music of that style is short and immediate. The pop format doesn't require the same development that you'd traditionally associate with dance on stage -
it's just three minutes, with the choruses repeated as many times as you can. So the challenge has been to extend the ideas of Printer Jam into a full-length piece, while overcoming the same limitations that have been applied to the format of the music.

'I'm now looking at a 20 or 25 minute work, and while that gives the dance more time to develop, it's also more time to
sustain.'